


The Song He Needed

by Delouest



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cole helps, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Lyrium, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, Skyhold, The Dawn will come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3292832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delouest/pseuds/Delouest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen, delirious with lyrium withdrawal, is too far gone to ask for help. Cole hears his silent cry. In his roundabout way, Cole sets out to help the commander of the Inquisition forces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song He Needed

_Panic pulling at the edges of everything. Settling sickly in the cracks and crevices. It hurts._

It was that hurt that drew Cole from the rafters of the tavern out onto the battlements. The horizon was clear in the mountains where Skyhold sat. Sharp. Cole squinted, even with his eyes protected by the shade of the hat that hid much of his face. But the hurt was too loud to ignore. The people below milled about, unaware. He felt the dull ache of their pains, but most of it was small, normal. There was something larger nearby. He wanted to pull his hat over his ears to drown out the sound. But he wouldn't. That would not help the person who was crying out. He refused to ignore it.

On silent feet Cole padded his way across the crumbling stone walls. Occasionally someone would look his way, but soon enough their gaze would go unfocused and slide past him, glazed over until something else inevitably caught their attention. He liked it that way. Their eyes felt heavy on him, weighing him down. It was easier when they didn't notice him. For them and him.

_Maybe just this once. Maybe I can handle just one more. And then I’ll be done with it. Then I can stop. Just one more and--No! I won’t._

The angry shout made Cole jump, but no one else startled. The silent cry for help brought Cole back to himself, back to his purpose.

Cullen paced the space of his small office, turning suddenly when he hit a wall and started the pattern again. He was soaked with sweat but was too distracted to take off his fur-lined cloak. If he had been well enough to focus on it, he would have felt the strange chill of a fever that ran down to his bones. He was shivering from withdrawal. He ran a shaky hand through his soaked hair.

You don’t need it, he thought, or possibly said. He wasn't certain if he was talking out loud or in his head. The only thing he could hear was the lack of song. The silence was maddening, and he crouched down with his hands over his ears, doubled over from the ache he felt at its absence.

Lyrium.

All his thoughts were of lyrium. It consumed him. It filled him with need as it emptied him of everything else until he was nothing more than a shell, a vessel that needed to be filled with song. It would be so simple to fix it. He needed only to take his lyrium and he would hear it again. The glorious song. The bright, cool blue of lyrium. Soothing. Calming. He would bathe in its icy relief.

_Resolve that falters, fleeting like a fearful fledgling. The silence must be ended, the song must be heard._

Cole knew what Cullen thought would ease the pain. But it wouldn't last. Before long the pain would start again, worse than the time before. Cole had already felt the pang of regret at simple fixes. Knew the damage it did.

_Dagger in my hands, wide eyes pleading for death, but begging for life as the knife goes in. Hot blood burbles out. She didn't want to die._

Cole hung his head, the sting of shame lingering nearby. He didn't know any better then. Even now, he was still learning.

Cole crouched on top of the bookshelf above Cullen, head bowed against the ceiling. Cullen did not see the young man, possibly because of Cole’s ability to remain unseen and possibly because Cullen was unaware of anything other than his addictive need for his lyrium. The spirit boy looked on with something some might call pity but was more akin to sympathy. The downward turn of his mouth, always sad, always unsure, momentarily lifted on one side. It was a tiny half smile fueled by an idea.  

He reached out with invisible hands, feeling the strings of emotion that knotted the air around him until he found the right rope of hurt. He spent a moment untangling it from the others that distracted him.

_He’ll die without me to care for him._

_What if they find out who I am?_

_What happens if I fail them?_

They were always there, so many voices, so many cries for help, but Cole needed to focus on the ones he could nudge in the right direction. Once the one he wanted was culled from the rest, he gave it a little tug and let it lead him to its owner.

In the tavern below Cullen’s office, Cole found her: strong jaw, high cheekbones, eyes heavy-lidded from weeks standing in the somewhat darkened room. Maryden Halewell, bard to the Inquisition. She was finishing up a song, and a light smattering of applause echoed through the room. So often the people she sang for saw her as a background fixture. At times she stopped singing to see if anyone noticed.

Krem in the corner usually sent a smile her way, but today he was distracted. He had one eye on the door-possibly a habit he’d picked up on from his rotations keeping watch over the Chargers-and seemed to notice something. He shook his head in confusion when he couldn't find what drew his focus. Eventually he stopped looking and settled back onto his chair, leaning back and taking a deep swig from a bottle of cheap wine. His face still showed unease, as he was certain someone had walked through the door.

Maryden plucked absentmindedly at her instrument, debating what to play next. the hollow twangs stopped when Cole stepped in front of her. It was unclear if she saw him or not; her gaze remained unfocused somewhere near where he stood.

He listened then for a quiet moment. He shut out the clatter of silverware against tables and the chatter of voices that weren't really saying anything. He listened to Maryden, to the words she had not yet said aloud.

_Unhelpful, unnecessary, undulating uselessly between frivolous and foolish. Surrounded by warriors and those who weave wonders. I am not needed._

Willing himself to be seen, Cole tried to lock eyes with the bard but soon found himself looking at his scuffed boots, unkempt hair falling over his face. He took a breath, remembering the importance of what he was doing.

He looked up sharply, his pale blue eyes pierced through her and he began to talk in his soft, pleading voice. “You need to go outside. You need to sing,” he told her. “He needs your song. They all do. You can help. You are essential. You can cheer them. Calm them.”

“I. I can?” Maryden’s face went slack with relief. Tension she did not know she had fell from her shoulders. “I can.” She said the words, but Cole knew they were not for him. Already she was looking past him to the door that lead outside.

As she walked out to the courtyard, she shifted her instrument to her back with the grace of a practiced hand. She wouldn’t need it for the song she was about to sing.

There were soldiers sparring, but they stopped when she walked past them up to the bridge that split the courtyard in half. Weapons were sheathed or held in loose hands at the soldiers’ sides. The practice fighting stalled. Everything went quiet, as if Skyhold itself reached into its foundation to call on ancient magics to hush its inhabitants. They looked up at Maryden in anticipation as she began her song:

 

Shadows fall

And hope has fled.

Steel your heart

The dawn will come.

The night is long

And the path is dark

Look to the sky

For one day soon

The dawn will come.

The shepherd's lost

And his home is far

Keep to the stars

The dawn will come

Bare your blade

And raise it high

Stand your ground

The dawn will come

It started with the bard’s breathy yet powerful voice but before long more voices joined the chorus. It didn’t matter if they had no talent for singing. The emotion behind the words kept it pure. The song was simple. Its meaning wasn’t. Believers and nonbelievers alike knew it as a song of hope. A promise that something better would come, even if you had to fight your way through.

From the floor of his office, Cullen listened. It was Haven all over again, but this time, somehow more meaningful for him. At Haven it was a rally after the Inquisitor seemed to have come back from the dead. At Skyhold it was evidence that they were on the right path. That Cullen was on the right path. He pulled himself off the ground, standing on still shaking yet determined feet and stepped out into the cool air.

The breeze against his damp skin woke him, and his vision cleared from the haze that had been consuming him. Cullen took a deep breath of the cold mountain air, held it a moment, then slowly let out a steady stream.

The desperation had passed.

He knew it would return; He was not naive enough to think he would never hear the siren’s call of lyrium again. But for the time being the strength of the people below him who relied on him, and the Inquisitor who had put so much faith in him, was enough to keep him going. And he knew it would help him pass the desperation the next time it came clawing its way back to the surface. Cullen wiped the sweat from his brown and hummed the new song that was running through his head in the place of the lyrium he had thought he needed. A better song had been sung that day, one that would last longer than the evanescent and empty promises of lyrium.

Below him, Cole slipped through the crowd into the shadows, fading from both sight and mind and back to his perch in the rafters. The air had cleared. There were fewer tangles of hurt hovering near him; the song had been healing for more than the commander and the bard. He did not want or require recognition for what he’d done. A handful of hurt was quelled, and his heart felt lighter for it. Beneath the shielding of his hat, he smiled.

He’d helped.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always so excited to talk to everyone that Cullen seems to get past the hard part of his lyrium withdrawal so quickly, almost too quickly (not that I want him to suffer!). I wanted to see what he was like at his breaking point, and what helped him turn it around. Cole's roundabout ways of healing people was so adorable I also wanted to explore that. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> "The Dawn Will Come" was not written by me.


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